


Way Back Again

by lilolilyrae



Series: Inevitable Beginnings [2]
Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Fix-It, I'd tag this, Kissing, Minor Character(s), Saru - Freeform, but for once it deserves the T rating anyway so..., episode tag: terra firma, jett reno - Freeform, rated t for trauma, sarek - Freeform, tilly - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:42:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28181109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilolilyrae/pseuds/lilolilyrae
Summary: Michael sees Philippa vanish through the portal, and although she knows that it is for the best, losing her almost breaks her. She doesn't have long to deal with her grief, though, as the Discovery is sucked into a space-time anomaly...Could the world they end up in be the same that Philippa had been sent to? Michael can't believe that Philippa is really alive and alright until she is standing right in front of her.
Relationships: Michael Burnham/Mirror Philippa Georgiou
Series: Inevitable Beginnings [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2064435
Comments: 16
Kudos: 39





	Way Back Again

**Author's Note:**

> The follow up Michael POV! 
> 
> And yes I am ignoring the presence of Book entirely in this one, sorry I know that’s the easy way out but I actually like him and wouldn’t want to write him badly but I also don’t have the time to rly work on it and I want to post it already, so…AU where he just doesn’t exist!  
> I also left it a bit vague on purpose so you can decide for yourself just how established Michael & Philippa's relationship was or wasn't before any of this...

  
Philippa presses her fist to her chest in her Terran gesture of goodbye, and Michael lifts the ta'al in reply almost on instinct.

For a moment, both women just look at each other, frozen in reverence.

Then, Philippa turns around, away from her, and steps closer to the portal.

Michael chokes up. So this is goodbye then, the final goodbye- maybe she should be grateful that she is getting a goodbye at all this time, but the thought of never seeing Philippa’s face again-

In that moment Philippa turns back around, looks at her- and then the portal swallows her whole, lighting up the ice in a bright flash before it is gone and Philippa disappears with it.

  
Michael is alone.

She smiles under tears.

This is the _good_ , the best possible outcome, it's the right thing to let her go. A new life for Philippa, a long, good life-

A life that she will have already lived, now, some distant time in the past. Because she is _gone_.

_Philippa is dead._

_Again._

She still feels the warmth of her skin on her face where their foreheads had touched, the stroke of her gloved hand over her cheek.

Tears well up in Michael’s eyes, but she forces herself to swallow her sorrow, to not let it drown her.

“One to beam up.”

  
Back up on the _Discovery_ , Michael has only stepped out onto the corridor when she feels the floor move under her boots, the entire ship shaking.

" _What_ is going on?" she exclaims to no-one in particular, way too exhausted to immediately think of something to do.

Joann comes running down the opposite direction, looking a little shaken up. "No idea, but something just exploded- I have to-”

Michael interrupts her rambling with a wave of her hand, lets her run past and hurries to the bridge herself. She can't help feeling a little glad at the distraction, at having something to do that will stop her from breaking down entirely… and there is no time to start feeling bad about that sentiment, because a moment later she arrives at her destination, and the view of the night sky is disrupted by a gleaming white light…

"There _appears_ to be a space-time anomaly in front of us," Saru carefully lets her know.

“Can we turn around to get away from it?” Michael asks, taking her place at the Captain’s side.

“The reverse thrusters are broken, so our movement is limited…” Keyla replies from her position at the helm.

“And if we shoot just past it at full speed?” Michael is thinking as hard as she can. “We should still be able to turn that much, and if we go to warp-”

“We can't get away from its pull- _Ah!_ ” Saru shouts as the ship shakes anew and he is thrown against the console.

Before Michael can hurry over to help him up, the ship surges forward, and screams echo through the room as the crew is thrown around while they disappear into the blinding light of the anomaly.

When they come out on the other side, Michael sits up from where she has landed on the floor and watches as Saru drags himself upwards, his hand briefly pressing against a scratch on his face but seeming otherwise unharmed.

“Casualties?” he asks into the room, and there is a moment of silence before everyone scrambles to communicate with their divisions.

“Minor injuries in engineering, they’re on their way to sickbay now…” Reno reports, uncharacteristically quiet. The others have the same news or no injuries at all.

“Where _are_ we now?” Michael asks, staring at the stars in front of them. The stars still look the same, minus the bright light. Some time, somewhere, Philippa is- _was_ \- looking at the same stars.

Now that the adrenaline subsides, her thoughts fly back to her experience earlier that day, and Michael has to suppress a shudder. The others probably don’t even know that Philippa is gone yet.

Saru moves his hands over the screens, frowning in confusion. “It seems we are at the same coordinates as before, but- the other readings are… _different_.”

“How are they ‘different’?” Michael asks wearily, not sure she wants to know the answer.

“Uh, Captain? We’re being hailed, a subspace frequency…” Keyla interrupts before Saru can answer.

“Put them through.”

The screen lights up, and Michael isn’t the only one to gasp, although she is definitely the most personally affected.

“Ambassador.” Saru answers, carefully composed.

“The _Discovery_ …” Sarek answers after a moment of silence.

Michael forces herself to step forward, into view of the holo call.

“Michael Burnham.” Sarek greets her almost reverently as she comes into view, holding up the ta’al. “When one of your crew appeared on earth, I had to try to contact you again, but I did not truly expect you to answer.”

“Sarek,” Michael whispers, feeling shaken to the core. Then- “What do you mean?”  
  
“The _Discovery_ had disappeared three years, one month and twenty-seven days ago today.” Sarek explains, but Michael shakes her head. Maybe that should have been what she had been asking, but whether they arrived back a week or a decade after they had left their original time seems unimportant after everything that happened in-between. What is really on her mind is…

“No, wait, you said one of the _Discovery_ crew is on earth? _Who?”_

“Your Captain. Philippa Georgiou.”

There is a ringing in Michael’s ears.

 _No_. It can't be. She must still be caught in the ice, Carl playing with her mind as he had with Philippa’s.

But- would he have told her about that trick before pushing her into the illusion?

But Sarek said that Philippa is _alive_. Well- one of the Philippas. Which- Michael finds herself hoping first for one, then the other… the Philippa she just left, the Captain that belongs into this world- before firmly settling on _her_ Philippa, not the one from her own universe, but the only one she had ever really laid a claim on.

Still, both seem impossible.

“S-show me” Michael whispers, “please.”

Sarek takes the portable comm station and moves through a doorway into a hospital room- and there, on the bed, is the sleeping from of the former Terran Emperor Philippa Georgiou, just the way she had left her down on Dannus V.

Michael lets out a breath she hadn’t realized she had been holding.

It is Philippa. _Her Philippa_.

She doesn’t notice that she moved at all before she feels the skin of her knuckles break under her teeth from how hard she had bitten them.

“Michael-” Sarek catches himself, most likely from saying something a little too _Vulcan_ for her to bear right now. “Are you- alright?”

"Father, you- you have no idea what happened to me in the past year," Michael gasps out with a sob.

From behind Sarek, she hears someone coughing, and then Philippa’s voice cuts through the air: "What- what year is it?"

" _Philippa!“_ Michael has to dig her fingers into the edge of the console to keep from biting her knuckles again. “Apparently- apparently it's 2261."

* * *

As they finally dock and the crew leaves the _Discovery_ with varied degrees of weariness, relief and excitement, Michael only has one goal in mind: to get to Philippa, as quickly as possible.

It turns out, she doesn’t need to go far.

She has no idea why Philippa is allowed on the hangar bay, whether they still think that she is Captain Georgiou or whether she got clearance through section 31, but she doesn’t care.

Their eyes meet, and Michael is frozen in place, clutching her go-bag in her hand.

Tilly takes the bag from her and whispers something that sounds a lot like ‘ _Go get her!_ ’, and Michael stumbles, unbalanced, but Philippa is already there to catch her.

“ _Michael_.”

Safe in Philippa’s arms, Michael can only cling to her and it takes her a moment until she even notices that she is crying. Her hands roam over Philippa’s back, her arms, her hair, scrambling for purchase and trying to believe that this is _real_ , that she is really here.

Philippa clasps her just as tightly. Her emotional turmoil had been clear in her eyes and is even more noticeable now in the way she clings to Michael as if she is her lifeline- Michael shivers as she thinks about what she must have gone through, she doesn’t even want to know what it was like to go through the portal, it had been bad enough to watch her go.

Burying her face in Philippa’s neck, a full-body shudder runs through her as she can press her nose against Philippa’s bare skin, smell the stupid fancy shampoo she always insists on getting for her hair and that is so very _her_ , press her lips against the side of her chin-

Philippa turns her head, and then they are kissing, Philippa’s arms coming up to hold her face between both of her hands, and Michael’s fingers dig into her leather jacket, her lips opening under Philippa’s as she deepens the kiss-

Michael is sobbing freely now, truly letting go for the first time since she had first thought she was going to lose her again.

It doesn’t stop her from kissing back just as forcefully as Philippa is kissing her, and neither do the tears seem to bother Philippa, who still has Michael's face clasped between both of her hands, her thumb stroking over her cheek to wipe away a tear- the gesture is so similar to her last gloved touch of her face on Dannus V, and Michael presses her own palm against Philippa’s now bare hand, holding her in place.

Philippa nips at her bottom lip, and Michael groans. Dimly, she is aware that this is absolutely indecent, but she doesn’t care one bit. If they are going to fire her for this, so be it. Opening her mouth further, she pushes her tongue in-between Philippa’s lips, and the first slide of rough wet skin against skin is glorious. Philippa is sliding her hands down her face and neck, one falling to the small of her back, pressing her body flush against her own.

The noise of an arriving shuttle startles them both into pulling apart, and then Michael laughs when she notices that they are alone, her bag carefully leaned against a railing at the side of the hangar.

"Philippa," she murmurs, letting the name linger for a second, "let's get out of here."

Philippa smirks, clasping her hand in her own, and together, they move forward into an uncertain future that isn't able to scare her anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> Despite being 2 soon 3 parts, this is still a oneshot, I don’t plan to write a longer series out of this, but the smut will still be up next don’t worry! xD
> 
> I hope the minor characters werent too ooc, I had no time or energy to focus on speech patterns of them rn...  
> I also know damn well that I wrote the first part of this series in the past tense but I don't have the energy to care about consistency right now xD  
> This was supposed to be longer but I cut the inbetween part that had some more of Michael's trauma and her getting help from Reno, Owo, Tilly and Keyla because I couldn't seem to finish it and I wanted to post it today... lmk if you'd be interested in reading the missing scenes once I get around to editing it! 
> 
> As always, leave a comment, and I'll let you know when I post more :)


End file.
